November 7, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



435 



P. Sherwin has been transferred from tlie 

 medical school, where he held a professorship 

 in physiological chemistry, to the university. 

 The department of chemistry in the university 

 has been entirely reorganized with Dr. Sher- 

 win as the head; John A. Daly and Geoi'ge J. 

 Shiple are are professors and Walter A. Hynes, 

 William Wolfe and William J. Fordrung, as- 

 sistant professors. 



Dr. H. L. Ibsen, of the University of Wis- 

 consin, has been appointed assistant professor 

 of animal husbandry in charge of the courses 

 and the experimental work in genetics at the 

 Kansas State Agricultural College. 



Charles Harlan Abbott, Ph.D. (Brown, 

 '18), has become instructor in zoology in 

 Massachusetts Agricultural College. 



Mr. Hubert Sheppard has been elected in- 

 structor in anatomy in the University of 

 Kansas. 



Dr. a. E. Hennings, formerly professor of 

 physics at the University of Saskatchewan, 

 Saskatoon, Canada, and more recently assist- 

 ant professor of physics at the University of 

 Chicago, has accepted an appointment in the 

 department of physics at the University of 

 British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. The 

 departmental staff as now constituted is rep- 

 resented by Drs. T. C. Hebb, A. E. Hennings, 

 J. G. Davidson and Mr. P. H. Elliott. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



NATURAL FIF.LD SANITATION IN CHINA 



In the thickly populated parts of South 

 China there are a considerable number of 

 people who financially are very poor; it is a 

 constant struggle with them to obtain food 

 for themselves and for any live stock which 

 they may possess, such as chickens and ducks, 

 a few hogs, or possibly a carabao. Fuel is 

 also very scarce and such waste vegetable 

 matter as becomes dried is promptly utilized 

 for heating purposes. This struggle for food 

 and fuel leads to a prompt utilization of all 

 waste vegetable material. Small leaves, in- 

 significant to us for this use, are picked up 

 sometimes one by one and it is a very common 

 sight to see small boys and girls, too small as 



yet to do heavy labor, picking up or sweeping 

 up fallen leaves for fuel. Gardens and fields 

 therefore are usually entirely free of old 

 decaying vegetable material.^ In this con- 

 nection an observation upon the absence of 

 leaf spot diseases on field crops in South 

 China is of possible interest. 



Sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas), tobacco 

 (Nicotiana taiacum), turnips {Brassica cam- 

 pesiris), onions (Allium cepa), chard (Beta 

 cicla), beans (Phaseolus sp.), carrots (Daucus 

 carota) and cauliflower (Brassica sp.) are 

 commonly grown in South China. Observa- 

 tion of these field crops has shown them to be 

 surprisingly free from the leaf spot diseases 

 which would ordinarily affect these crops in 

 the United States. These observations have 

 been at two separate periods, at both times the 

 weather being very moist and with tempera- 

 tures which would not limit development of 

 the causal fungi. It would seem as if these 

 farmers in their utilization of all waste mate- 

 rial as fuel and the consequent removal of 

 sources of infection, maintain their crops 

 almost entirely free from these diseases. That 

 is, apparently the absence of leaf spot diseases 

 may be accounted for by the field sanita- 

 tion, practised unknowingly by the Chinese 

 farmers. 



These observations are put forward only as 

 an illustration of what may be called field 

 sanitation, carried out on a large scale with 

 apparently successful results. This would sug- 

 gest that in the United States much could be 

 gained by more careful field methods and the 



1 Professor F. H. King in his very interesting 

 book, ' ' Farmers of Forty Centuries, ' ' discusses the 

 use of compost heaps very completely. The use 

 of compost heaps containing remnants and wastes 

 of plant material is of course a great means for 

 the dissemination of diseases of crop plants. 

 Since one reading Professor King's work might 

 consider it to refute the present suggestion, it 

 seems well to explain that in South China such 

 compost heaps are much more uncommon than in 

 the region around Shanghai and Shantung prov- 

 ince, and although compost heaps have been seen 

 near Canton they are few and do not seem to play 

 the part in the agricultural scheme that they do 

 farther north. 



